Speakers at Thursday’s event include Courtney Wilson, the executive director of the B&O Railroad History Museum. Wilson will discuss important roles African-Americans played in the development of the American railroad. That includes the work of Granville T. Woods, who was known as the “black Edison” for inventions that improved electric rail cars in the late 1800s.

The commemoration will also include an appearance by an original member of the Tuskegee Airmen and the Amtrak locomotive engineer at the controls of the train that took President Barack Obama to his first inauguration in 2009.